The preparation of megaporous bodies, with potential applications in biotechnology, was attempted by following several strategies. As a first step, naive and robust scaffolds were produced by polymerization of selected monomers in the presence of a highly soluble cross-linker agent. Ion-exchange function was incorporated by particle embedding, direct chemical synthesis, or radiation-induced grafting. The total ionic capacity of such systems was 1.5 mmol H(+)/g, 1.4 mmol H(+)/g, and 17 mmol H(+)/g, respectively. These values were in agreement with the ability to bind model proteins: observed dynamic binding capacity at 50% breakthrough was ≅7.2 mg bovine serum albumin/g, ≅7.4 hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL) mg/g, and ≅108 HEWL mg/g. In the later case, total (static) binding capacity reached 220 mg/g. It was observed that the structure and size of the megapores remained unaffected by the grafting procedure which, however, allowed for the highest protein binding capacity. Lysozyme supported on grafted body showed extensive clarification activity against a Micrococcus lysodekticus suspension in the flow-through mode, i.e., 90% destruction of suspended microbial cells was obtained with a residence time ≈ 18 min. Both protein capture and biocatalysis applications are conceivable with the 3D-megaporous materials described in this work.

Protein adsorption onto hydrophobic chromatographic supports has been investigated using a colloid theory surface energetics approach. The surface properties of commercially available chromatographic beads, Toyopearl Phenyl 650-C, and Toyopearl Butyl 650-C, have been experimentally determined by contact angle and zeta potential measurements. The adsorption characteristics of these beads, which bear the same backbone matrix but harbor different ligands, have been studied toward selected model proteins, in the hydrated as well as dehydrated state. There were two prominent groups of proteins observed with respect to the chromatographic supports presented in this work: loosely retained proteins, which were expected to have lower average interaction energies, and the strongly retained proteins, which were expected to have higher average interaction energies. Results were also compared and contrasted with calculations derived from adsorbent surface energies determined by inverse liquid chromatography. These results showed a good qualitative agreement, and the interaction energy minima obtained from these extended Derjaguin, Landau, Verwey and Overbeek calculations were shown to correlate well with the experimentally determined adsorption behavior of each protein.

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Protein adsorption onto hydrophobic interaction chromatography supports was studied by a surface-thermodynamics approach. To gather relevant experimental information, contact angle measurements and zeta potential determinations were performed on three different commercial adsorbent beads, Phenyl Sepharose 6 Fast Flow, Toyopearl Phenyl 650-C and Source 15 Phenyl, having soft to rigid backbone structure. Similar information was obtained for a collection of model proteins, lysozyme, bovine serum albumin (BSA), polygalacturonase, aminopeptidase, chymosin, aspartic protease, beta-galactosidase, human immunoglobulin G, and lactoferrin, were evaluated in the hydrated and in the dehydrated state. Based on the mentioned experimental data, calculations were performed to obtain the (interfacial) energy versus distance profiles of nine individual (model) proteins on (commercial) beads of three different types. All of these beads harbored the phenyl-ligand onto a matrix of differentiated chemical nature. Extended Derjaguin, Landau, Verwey, and Overbeek (DLVO) calculations were correlated with actual chromatographic behavior. Typical chromatography conditions were employed. The population of model proteins utilized in this study could be segregated into two groups, according to the minimum values observed for the resulting interaction energy pockets and the corresponding retention volumes (or times) during chromatography. Moreover, trends were also identified as a function of the type of adsorbent bead under consideration. This has revealed the influence of the physicochemical nature of the bead structure on the adsorption process and consequently, on the expected separation behavior.

BACKGROUND: A surface thermodynamics approach can be utilized to understand protein interaction during adsorption chromatography. Ceramic hydroxyapatite has been widely used in the purification of biomolecules during downstream bio-processing. Protein interaction with this adsorbent is a complicated process.

This part of work was done to explore the basic understanding of the adsorption chromatography by determining the interaction of selected model proteins (n = 5) to monolithic chromatographic materials, with varying densities of butyl and phenyl ligands. Surface energetics approach was applied to study the interaction behavior. The physicochemical properties of the proteins and monolithic chromatographic materials were explored by contact angle and zeta potential values. These values were used to study protein to monolith interaction under various operating conditions. Surface energetics approach allowed the calculation of interaction energy as a function of distance, i.e. energy minimum values. Calculations were performed at various conditions to analyze the effect of major operating parameters on the interaction strength. The interaction strength exposed the hydrophobic nature of the monoliths which increases with increasing ligand density. Further, interaction energy of proteins were higher with monolith with butyl ligand compared to monolith with phenyl ligand. For instance, lactoferrin interaction to monoliths with butyl represents more interaction, i.e. 24.38 kT as compared to monoliths with phenyl i.e. 23.28 kT, keeping lambda as 0.2 nm and salt concentration as 100 mM of ammonium sulphate. Hence, more energy and time will be consumed for elution of proteins immobilized to monoliths with butyl. Similarly, the effect of solid surface for proteins immobilization, effect of ligand density and effect of lambda showed some interesting insights on the interaction behavior. The knowledge generated from the present work will help in the basic understanding as well as development of an efficient, low cost downstream processing design and may mimic the real chromatographic experiments.

Fibrous materials are prominent among novel chromatographic supports for the separation and purification of biomolecules. In this work, strong anion exchange, quaternary ammonium (Q) functional fibrous adsorbents were evaluated with regards to their physical and functional characteristics. A column packed with Q fibrous adsorbent illustrated the good column packing efficiency of theoretical plate height (H) values and higher permeability coefficients (>0.9 × 10 −7 cm 2 ) than commercial adsorbents. For pulse experiments with acetone and lactoferrin as tracers under nonbinding conditions, the total porosity (for acetone) and the interstitial porosity (for lactoferrin) measured 0.97 and 0.47, respectively. The total ionic capacity of the chemically-functionalized Q fiber was 0.51 mmol/mL. The results indicated that the Q fiber had a static binding capacity of 140 mg/mL and a dynamic binding capacity (DBC) of 76 mg/mL for bovine serum albumin (BSA) and showed a linearly-scalable factor (~110 mL) for a column volume with high capacity and high throughput. Furthermore, this adsorptive material had the ability to bind OPEN ACCESSProcesses 2015, 3 205 the high molecular weight protein, thyroglobulin, with a capacity of 6 mg/mL. This work demonstrated the column-packed Q fibrous adsorption system as a potential chromatography support that exhibits high capacity at higher flow rates.

Ion exchange chromatography is one of the most widely used chromatographic technique for the separation and purification of important biological molecules. Due to its wide applicability in separation processes, a targeted approach is required to suggest the effective binding conditions during ion exchange chromatography. A surface energetics approach was used to study the interaction of proteins to different types of ion exchange chromatographic beads. The basic parameters used in this approach are derived from the contact angle, streaming potential, and zeta potential values.The interaction of few model proteins to different anionic and cationic exchanger, with different backbone chemistry, that is, agarose and methacrylate, was performed.Generally, under binding conditions, it was observed that proteins having negative surface charges showed strong to lose interaction (20 kT for Hannilase to 0.5 kT for IgG) with different anionic exchangers (having different positive surface charges). On the contrary, anionic exchangers showed almost no interaction (0-0.1 kT) with the positively charged proteins. An inverse behavior was observed for the interaction of proteins to cationic exchangers. The outcome from these theoretical calculations can predict the binding behavior of different proteins under real ion exchange chromatographic conditions. This will ultimately propose a better bioprocess design for protein separation.